The Undertow

by Peter Corris

  Lil finished working and came down the stairs yawning. She leaned over me as I jotted down some notes illegible to anyone else, and sometimes to me.

  ‘It’s a great piece,’ I said. ‘Should’ve got a Walkley.’

  ‘That’s my ambition. What d’you think I’m hanging around with you for?’

  Time was when Newport was fairly unfashionable and fairly affordable. Not now. Never mind that salt air rusts the guttering and zaps the computers, Sydney people want to be as close to the water as they can. Plenty of money had been spent in Newport since I’d last been there. The old houses had just about disappeared to make way for apartment blocks and the ones that had survived had been renovated and modified so that their original owners wouldn’t have known them.

  The Workers Club was at the south end of Newport beach with a view straight out over the Tasman Sea or the Pacific Ocean, take your pick. I’d stopped in Dee Why to pick up the brandy. I don’t drink the stuff unless there’s nothing else around, and don’t know one brand from another. Hennessy appealed to my Irish ancestry.

  The club building had undergone change like everything else around, and not necessarily for the better. It had that generic look of polished metal and glass, potted plants and photographs of club officials with chins spilling down towards their tie knots. In my slip-ons, clean jeans, blue shirt and blazer, I passed the dress regulations comfortably. The club was affiliated with almost every other club in the state, so my Balmain membership got me full privileges, whatever they were.

  The addicts were feeding the pokies, the alkies were nursing their drinks, and the old surfers were staring out at the rolling waves. The thing about Sydney beaches is that they have a way of looking good whatever the weather. This Monday morning was one that might go this way or that as it developed. There was a mild southerly, good waves, but dark cloud building.

  I was early, a chronic habit. I bought a middy of light and sat at a table where I could see the entrance and keep an eye on the water. I’d surfed here myself in days gone by, but preferred the southern beaches.

  He came in at eleven-twenty. Lil’s description had been accurate and he was easy to spot. After climbing the few steps he was out of breath and clutched the metal handrail as a spasm of coughing seized him. He survived it and lit a cigarette the instant it passed.

  He wore a tweed jacket that had seen much better days and he took it off slowly as he looked around. I stood and he moved towards me, folding his coat over his arm in an oddly old-world gesture. He was dressed in a grey pullover, cream shirt and grey slacks, the jumper and pants streaked with cigarette ash.

  He approached the table and looked at me with eyes that had a milkiness suggesting cataracts forming.

  ‘Mr Belfrage,’ I said.

  ‘Doctor Belfrage, if you please.’

  ‘What’ll you have, doctor?’

  He lowered himself into a chair. ‘I’ll have a middy of black and a large brandy.’

  I bought the drinks and when I got back he’d lined up a packet of fifty cigarettes and his lighter, and drawn the ashtray closer. He accepted the drinks without thanks, took a sizeable sip of the brandy and a long pull on the middy after inhaling smoke. He exhaled and leaned back in the chair letting the drugs do their work. The area we were in was quiet but activity was beginning in the cafeteria adjacent, and further off the pokies were whirring.

  ‘Private investigator, eh?’ he said. ‘I used to employ blokes like you when my clients didn’t pay up. Do much of that sort of work?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘I hope you brought the brandy.’

  I lifted the bottle in its paper bag from the chair beside me. ‘Hennessy,’ I said. ‘Hope that’s all right.’

  He went through the smoke-inhaling drink-absorbing ritual again. ‘It’ll do. What d’you want to know?’

  ‘Do you remember a doctor named Bellamy being murdered and his partner, Heysen, being convicted of conspiring to kill him?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘I’ve been told Heysen and another doctor were performing illicit plastic surgery.’

  ‘In what sense illicit?’

  ‘I mean clandestine and for people wanting to change their appearance for other than cosmetic reasons.’

  ‘Nicely put. Well it happened, certainly.’

  ‘But you can’t confirm it in this case.’

  ‘It’s a long time ago. Your lady friend traduced me, you know.’

  It was clear he was going to play a very cautious game with diversionary tactics.

  He smoked and drank some more and looked around as if he’d lost interest in the conversation. His skin was grey and drawn tight over the bones of his face. His greasy, dun-coloured hair was plastered across his skull like a smear of mud. His hands, one holding the cigarette, the other wrapped around a glass, were thin with long fingers and bloodless nails. Lily was right—you wouldn’t want him to touch you.

  I decided to be direct. ‘I’ll try a name on you—Dr Karl Lubeck,’ I said. ‘Have you heard of him?’

  He looked at me with the milky eyes. ‘Yes, he worked with Heysen in Darlinghurst.’

  ‘So you do remember about Heysen’s sideline?’

  ‘I do, and I can probably remember a deal more if I see the money and . . .’ he tossed off the rest of the brandy and beer, ‘I get another drink. Same again.’

  This time when I came back a garishly dressed old crone with a corrugated face was standing next to Belfrage, who was lighting the cigarette she’d obviously bludged.

  ‘Give Dulce a few dollars, Hardy, so she can dream of a jackpot.’

  I handed the woman some change and she mooched away.

  ‘One of your clients, doctor?’ I said.

  ‘Watch your mouth.’

  ‘I’m getting sick of this, Belfrage. I know what a defrocked, discredited, dis-fucking-grace to your profession you are. I’ve got the money and you can have it if you tell me something useful. Otherwise you can sink those two drinks and fuck off without the money or the brandy.’

  He sat very still and lit another cigarette. ‘Don’t smoke, do you?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘How did you stop?’

  ‘Stubbornness.’

  ‘Yes, I can believe that. What do you want to know about Karl?’

  ‘Where he and a woman named Pixie Padrone are.’

  ‘Pixie!’ He tried to drink and laugh at the same time and was overwhelmed by a coughing fit that shook him from head to toe. The cigarette fell from his fingers and the brandy glass hit the table, slopping out half of its contents.

  I put the cigarette in the ashtray and pushed the middy towards him as he fought for breath. After he managed to suck in a few wheezy gasps he drank some beer and reached for the cigarette. People were staring at us. I gripped his bony wrist, trying to look solicitous.

  ‘Breathe some air and tell me about it.’

  His puny chest heaved as air flowed into his wrecked system. ‘You shouldn’t make me laugh. You’ll kill me.’

  ‘Karl and Pixie, where?’

  He wrapped both hands around the middy glass like a drowning man clutching at driftwood. ‘Pixie Padrone, I remember when she was that. She could be had for ten dollars, five on a slow night. Now she’s Patricia.’

  ‘Okay. Take it slowly, I don’t want you dropping dead quite yet. Tell me about them, especially where they are.’

  ‘Brisbane.’

  ‘I couldn’t find him in the medical registry. Has he been delisted, like you?’

  ‘You’re trying to provoke me. No, he’s changed his name. He’s Karol Lubitsch now and, as I said, Pixie is Patricia.’

  ‘Where in Brisbane?’

  ‘They have a clinic in New Farm, Glendale Gardens or some such pretentious address.’

  I moved around the table and put the bottle of brandy on the seat next to him.

  ‘The money?’ he said.

  ‘In a minute. How would you suggest I get to see Lubeck . . . Lubits
ch?’

  The cloudy eyes studied me again. ‘How many times has that nose been broken?’

  ‘Several.’

  ‘And the scarred eyebrows—boxing, I take it?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The nose could be remodelled and scars smoothed out.

  I’d suggest you get a referral from a doctor. A man in your trade should have a tame medico.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call him tame, but it can be done. Good idea.’

  He snapped the long, blue-white fingers. ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve got just one problem. What’s to stop you contacting Lubitsch and alerting him that I’m coming?’

  He lit a cigarette from the butt of the previous one and drew on it with a surprising amount of wind. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘To bleed money from him, of course.’

  He held up his hand. ‘Don’t make me laugh again. There’s no love lost between Karol Lubitsch and me, I assure you. We had a serious falling out long ago. I passed a client to him who gave him a considerable amount of trouble. Legal trouble, which is what everyone in the profession fears most.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘At a guess, it’s the same for you. I wouldn’t want Lubitsch to know where I am or what I’m doing. He’d almost certainly take reprisals. And I’m sure you mean him harm, which is fine by me.’ He ran out of breath for speaking but not for smoking, as if the nicotine opened some air passages. ‘Malice, Mr Hardy,’ he wheezed, ‘is my middle name.’

  I believed him and handed over the money.

  11

  ‘How did it go?’ Lily asked.

  I’d dropped in at a post office on the way home and checked the Brisbane telephone directory. Dr Karl Lubitsch’s address was listed as suites 12–14, Glendale Gardens, New Farm.

  ‘You were right on all counts,’ I said. ‘He’s an absolute creep, but he came through with the information I wanted. By the way, he said you traduced him.’

  ‘Bullshit, I changed the name. So where are they?’

  ‘Brisbane.’

  ‘Uh oh, off again. Pretty soon we’ll be meeting in airports.’

  ‘Or joining the mile high club.’

  ‘You wish. Well, it’ll be warmer up there and I’ll have the place here to myself to work.’

  ‘There’s a storm brewing. Phone the NRMA insurance if the roof blows off. Is it hard to get to see these guys?’

  ‘Not for the initial consultation . . . What’re you talking about?’

  ‘I’m going to pretend to be a patient.’

  ‘Client, please.’

  *

  Ian Sangster has been my doctor through metres of stitches and bandage and kilos of plaster of Paris. He laughed like a drain when I told him what I wanted. ‘You know what happened to Harry Grebb?’

  I did. Grebb, world light-heavyweight champion in the twenties and the only man ever to beat Gene Tunney, had died under the anaesthetic during an operation to straighten his pugilistic hooter.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be going under the knife.’

  ‘You could do with a bit.’

  ‘The closest I’ve ever come to cosmetic surgery is getting circumcised and I didn’t have a say.’

  I gave him the details and he said I could pick up the referral later in the day. I phoned the Brisbane number. A cool-voiced female receptionist answered. I told her I had a referral to Dr Lubitsch, and asked how soon I could see him.

  ‘Would Friday suit you?’

  ‘Nothing before that?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Unless there’s a cancellation. What kind of medical cover do you have?’

  ‘Top rank Medibank Private.’

  She took down my number and said she’d phone if there was a cancellation. She rang back within an hour to say I could have an appointment at 8.30 am on Wednesday. I accepted.

  ‘Please have your referral and your Medibank Private card with you.’

  ‘Am I supposed to fast or bring a urine sample?’

  She giggled. ‘No, nothing like that. The initial consultation is more of a chat.’

  ‘Wonder what you’ll pay for a chat,’ Lily said when I told her I’d booked on a Tuesday afternoon Virgin flight to Brisbane in order to make the early Wednesday slot.

  ‘That’s a point. I’m going through Frank’s money at a rate of knots.’

  ‘Maybe you can get some more from the winsome widow.’

  ‘All I can tell her is that her kid made a good impression on a bloke in a profession she despises. Not something she’s likely to want to hear. Oh, and that her late hubby did hush-hush plastic surgery.’

  As soon as I spoke, the thought struck me that Catherine Heysen was on a wild goose chase. If I could prove that her husband hadn’t organised his partner’s murder, still very problematical, it would most likely involve his work as a dodgy plastic surgeon. That was a revision hardly likely to divert the son onto the straight and narrow path. It felt like something to talk over with Frank. Although I hadn’t wanted to give him an update yet, I decided I’d better.

  ‘I’m free,’ he said when I rang him.

  ‘How about an overpriced drink out at the airport around one o’clock?’

  ‘You’re on.’

  ‘What’ll you tell Hilde?’

  ‘Not your problem. See you there.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that but he was right. I had enough problems, including the major one of what I was going to say or do when I came face to face with Dr Karol Lubitsch, aka Karl Lubeck.

  I put the Falcon in the long-term parking area, checked my one bag in the required time ahead of the flight, and passed through the metal detectors without setting off any bells and whistles. I had an old sports bag containing a book, a newspaper folded to the crossword page, a map of Brisbane and environs and a collapsible umbrella. I’d checked the weather and found it was going to be ten degrees warmer in Brisbane than in Sydney, but with storms threatening.

  Frank was sitting at a table staring out at the planes on the tarmac and nursing a beer. He looked as though he wished he could get on one of the planes and head off. I bought a drink and took a seat opposite him.

  ‘Why here?’ he said.

  ‘My investigation on your behalf is taking me to Brisbane.’

  ‘Half your luck.’

  I had no option but to tell him what I’d been doing and the way things were looking at that point. He seemed disappointed that I hadn’t put in any time on finding William Heysen.

  ‘That wasn’t my brief.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. My mind has been running on him a bit.’

  I made the point I had to make—that, however it came out, young Heysen wasn’t going to see his father as a model citizen and change his ways.

  He nodded as if he’d come to the same conclusion himself before I even spoke. I was worried about him. Always spare, he’d lost weight and the lines on his face were more deeply etched. He was jumpy, wired. He finished his beer, got up and brought back two more.

  ‘It might all take a different turn, mate,’ he said.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Hilde knows something’s wrong. She reads me like a book. I think I’m going to have to come clean about it all.’

  ‘Could be the best thing.’

  ‘Yeah, except she’s in this funny state and there’s a complication. We haven’t heard from Peter in a while and there’re reports of trouble in the part of South America he’s in. She’s very worried about him and I am, too. Not exactly the best time to spring a problem love child on her.’

  ‘How serious are the reports? How credible?’

  Frank shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to find out more but the place isn’t exactly well-ordered. He’s looking into logging near the border of Brazil and Colombia. Hard to know what to believe.’

  ‘What did you mean about things taking a different turn?’

  Frank blinked, as though he was looking into the future and couldn’t hold his gaze steady. ‘God knows h
ow Hilde’ll react when I spell it out for her. Then there’s Catherine. She’s likely to want a DNA test to confirm I’m her son’s father. She says she’s got hair samples. If I am the father . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d have to do something about straightening him out myself.’

  I started on the second drink, hardly realising that I’d downed the first. ‘Jesus, Frank, that’d be getting into deep water.’

  His smile was humourless. ‘With undertow.’

  ‘Maybe we should just chuck the whole thing about Heysen. He was bent in one way or another. What’s the difference?’

  ‘No. Something went wrong in that investigation. I’d at least like to see that straightened out, even if everything else goes to hell in a hand cart.’

  I wondered about his thinking. Was he still so attracted to Catherine Heysen that he’d consider trading one woman and one son for another woman and another son? Unlikely, but men in chaos think chaotically and do chaotic things.

  Frank watched me as I chewed over what he’d said. Out of habit I felt for the boarding pass in my jacket pocket and he misinterpreted the movement. Before I could stop him he’d pulled out a cheque book and was writing.

  ‘No, Frank.’

  He ripped the cheque out, tearing a corner. ‘What the hell. I’m going to see this through whatever it takes. You’ve paid Wain and Belfrage, right?’

  ‘Yes, a bit, but—’ He shoved the cheque into my shirt pocket. ‘Plane fare, accommodation, car hire, it all costs. I can afford it, Cliff.’

  ‘What about Hilde and the cheque account?’

  He sank his beer and got up. ‘I’m going to tell her the whole story when I get home. Good luck, mate. Take care of yourself.’